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The New Foodspotting

Have you heard of Okonomiyaki, Takoyaki or Kushikatsu? I grew up in Pittsburgh, where I was a Pierogi and Primanti Brothers Expert, and while my adventurous parents did their best to expand my horizons by feeding me everything from Egg Foo Young to Liver & Onions, there were so many dishes I simply couldn't find in Pittsburgh or even the US at all. So, as you may have heard by now, I started Foodspotting when a trip to Osaka, Japan opened my eyes to how many dishes I'd never heard of before.

Since then, I've discovered so many dishes using our redesigned apps -- from Dosas to Doubles -- but discovering dishes using our website has never been quite as easy. So we set out to change that this summer. Today, we're excited to announce our first web redesign since August 2010, which not only unifies the site and apps, but enables you to slice and dice over 2.5M dishes in all kinds of ways.

Seeing how many regional specialties you can spot at McDonalds around the world.

And, of course, setting your location so you can find great dishes nearby!

Share your discoveries!

These are just a few of the great finds our team has been exchanging all summer, and we can't wait to see what you discover! We'll feature your best finds as #dishoftheday.

Set your location or pan & zoom the map to adjust it.

Search for whatever you're craving by dish or by restaurant.

Share your favorite finds on Twitter or Facebook, right from the header, using the hashtag #dishoftheday on Twitter or mentioning @Foodspotting on facebook!

But what happened to ___?

In addition to reimagining the foodseeking experience, we've redesigned every other page of the site to make your photos shine and draw attention to what matters most: It’s all about the food. This means some features have been simplified or shuffled around, which we realize may take some getting used to. But in the end, we hope you'll enjoy less clutter and MORE FOOD as much as we do! (Hint: Your Dashboard Feed, Guides and People all can be found under “Share”)

Happy to see that you guys are continuously improving the UI. I like how the upgraded app looks on my Android phone. Good job on that. :) But no so much on my computer monitor. I'm all for simplifying and highlighting the photos and I commend your efforts. Although, I feel that it's been oversimplified which causes a lot more scrolling down/up compared previously. That's a minus for me, usability-wise. This is how I see it on my widescreen monitor --> http://i.imgur.com/45uHL.png (I marked red rectangles around the big white spaces) .
When I hit the share page (previously dashboard) the very first thing I need to do now is scroll down to look at the spots, as I don't upload photos everyday. I think there's a need to have more planning on responsive design for the bigger devices. Something like being able to view and tag 2 spots (or more, depends on the monitor's resolution) side by side. Maybe something to think about on your next major upgrade? :) In saying that, you guys rock for coming up with this most excellent site and making it better!

Wow, an improvement at last! I like the Mac OS looking new layout, but I think too much space wasted on the computer screen. I love the old information-packed version better. Browsing from page to page is quicker now, tagging and commenting response are also better. But why the pictures are more difficult to load? For users in third world countries like I do, internet connection is not always as speedy as it should. I've been refreshing the page several times, but I still could not load most of the pictures from s3.amazonaws.com where you put them. No such problems with FS old version and the same connection. Please fix it...

Hmmm... I completely agree that what the site is all about is our shared love for food. But, the more I browse the new FS, the more I see that the food is actually missing. I like the old version better. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for improvement. But now I can't look at the food pictures while I'm commenting or tagging "Great Shot" and "Great Find" on my friend's pages. As Sol Quimpo said, a lot more scrolling down/up compared to the older version.

I like how you have changed the UI to focus on dishes v.s. restaurants even further, and you actually have specific dishes you can search for.
However, your naming for Indian dishes in particular isn't where it needs to be.
As an example:
If I search for Chicken Tikka, I get Chicken Tikka Masala, Chicken Tikka Plate, and Chicken Tikka Kati rolls, but no chicken Tikka.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tikka
When I search for butter chicken, I get Butter Chicken Thali, Butter Chicken Curry, but no Butter Chicken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_chicken
When I search for Dosa ( the dish, not the restaurant ), I get some results which have Chicken Tikka Masala, some which have Pork Buns and some which have Sardines. WTF.
When I search for Aloo Paratha, I also get a second result of Aloo Parata.
Also (Chana|Channa) (Bhatura|Batura) are the same thing, and your searches don't aggregate them appropriately.
Please improve your dish listing and aggregation to make the new design useful.

The new design is amazing, but it would be much better if you could replace your location page with foursquare, like in instagram, that ways the pics we take can be added to the 4sq venue page as well as we won't have to checkin in 4sq we can directly do it from foodspotting app. we are soon reaching a stage where it would be very much required to closely integrate all such cool stuff else it will be too difficult to checkin at one place post pics on another and add effects on some other app.

I realy don't like the new Foodspotting site! Foodspotting for me is share what I spot and see what friends spot. And that is a bit of a competition, but in the new design I can't easily see what my friends have spotted and the whole points system is downgraded to a small number on my profile page.
Also I know can't even see a whole photo because the photos are bigger dan my screen. So i have to scroll a bit down to see the rest of a photo.
I realy realy dislike the new website and I hope you put back to old website. For me the fun of sharing what I've spotted here is a bit gone.......

The focus now is more on finding a great dish instead of sharing a great dish. The old homepage was my dashboard with dishes my friends have spotted, the new homepage is a map of my street which has no restaurants so the map is completely empty.
I don't like the new focus on finding instead of sharing.........

I like the change. Especially the change in the colour scheme. The whole site indeed feels lighter, thanks to the new colouring and also de-cluttering. I have to get used to the new ways around but that should be accomplished within a few days. So "Thank You" for the make-over!

An easy one for me - while I don't hate it, I don't like it. But, it's because I probably don't use Foodspotting for what many people do - most of the time I have zero interest in what people are spotting in the neighborhood where I happen to be at any given moment. I'm interested in what my friends and family, the people I follow, are spotting, and that's no longer the front page.

The new web site looks nice, but it does lose quite a bit of effectivity when I add/upload multiple different dish of photo to the same restaurant. Btw, personally, I don't think it is necessary to unify the way to show content between website and mobile apps. For me, I upload/add dish more than viewing people dish contributions, As a fan of Foodspotting, may I request that please make photo posting easier on the same restaurant ? :-P

I'm a little confused by the new layout but there are some things I like. I like how newer pics are featured and the suggestions by category. What I really hate however is the bland layout color and I'm not crazy about the design at all.

New design is inefficient on computer screen as a tiny column in the middle. No chance to continue with guide, Ugly!. Why did you optimized it for resolution from 1990 --- I guess 640x480? Over here we have high definition monitors.

i upload some food pictures on Instagram and sync with FB & twitter but somehow Foodspotting added that food picture? How is it done? Suggest talk to Instagram and add synchronize with Foodspotting in addition to current FB, Twitter, weibo?

I'm almost not using foodspoting anymore, the new navigation interface is not nice or intuitive... I can't even find my friends and followrs pages. I hope the next major update come soon and makes me active o Foodspotting again.

The new design is aesthetically pleasing but the photo uploader on the full website (desktop) does not allow an upload from an iPhoto library. When I travel I take photos with my DSLR and would like to keep uploading them. Please fix this one small quirk.

The new re-design looks pretty slick, and I applaud you for trying to make the experience better - but as mentioned above this has been at the expense of functionality. I'm unable to upload ANY photos (using both chrome and IE) making the whole exercise pointless.

We're responding to blog comments via email since we don't notify everyone of blog comments, but you can get a faster response and more feedback if you post feedback here:
http://foodspotting.uservoice.com
Thanks everyone, and keep it coming on Uservoice!

I'm just back from vacation and have to report that sites I posted before leaving are not easily found on the app. I was in one restaurant and could only pull up one photo of 5 I had posted to show the reataurant owner, whom I was encouraging to join Foodspotting. Another restaurant didn't pop up on the app at all until I input it's entire name. I was standing in front of it so was confused as to why it wasn't showing up.

I'm sorry, but I don't like the new foodspotting. I can't find what my friends spot as the dashboard used to be so now I use the iPhone app for that, because it hasn't been updated yet. Also I don't like the title badges anymore, because sometimes food that I post get the wrong title badge.

I only see a scant few on my own sightings on my profile page, and the rest of the page is filled with dishes I "want". How do I access the rest of my own sightings??
I do not like the new Foodspotting.

Thanks for your feedback everyone! We're responding to your questions via email since we don't notify everyone of blog comments, but you can get a faster response if you post feedback here: http://foodspotting.uservoice.com

Getting worse and worse ... filtering comments in notifications disappeared. I'm not sure guys what are you trying to achieve. Definitely wrong direction since re-design. Still ugly on big screen monitors. 1/3 page in the middle column is not a design !!!

I find the new format quite nice but am puzzled why some of the shots I took are twice the size of others on screen. Also some images are shown repeatedly but I think I only uploaded them once. I am using a MACbook pro, latest software. I actually started a small contest between several restaurants that I frequent (I take pix of their more attractively served dishes). Good going and good luck for the future of Foodspotting!

I don't like how I have to do a whole new spotting for a dish if I want to add it to a group. I'm one out of like three in my area who use this thing and I'd like to be able to feel like my stuff is actually being seen. :/

This is all very new to me and this article really opened my eyes.Thanks for sharing with us your wisdom.This is all very new to me and this article really opened my eyes.Thanks for sharing with us your wisdom.I enjoy what you've got right here, adore what you're stating and the way you say it
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It is impossible to delete a food from my profile. I accidentaly clicked "want" and now I can not get it off. Even funnier, I thought I could undo it by clicking "want" again, but now I seem to want it even more...thats just wrong. You need to put a button called "undo" or "reset" for the things someone likes. this way i can not use the site.

Unfortunately when I post on foodspotting and try to sync to foursquare from my phone it doesn't work. Only if I use my computer. And yes, I'm checking the foursquare box to indicate the share. Is this just a bug? Anyone else having the same problem? I find myself wasting time posting the same thing twice when I would rather be enjoying my meal and night out. Thoughts?

The new iPhone app for iOS 7 is a step back. The look is colder and less food associated. Usability has decreased. More clicks and more scrolling is required. Things like "liked, tried or loved" are hidden in a deeper menus. Please go back or revise the new app.

The new iPhone app for iOS 7 is a step back. The look is colder and less food associated. Usability has decreased. More clicks and more scrolling is required. Things like "liked, tried or loved" are hidden in a deeper menus. Please go back or revise the new app.

It would be great to see all your submissions all at once instead of one by one. For example, seeing the photos like in a grid for easier viewing on whether you posted them or not. Maybe even being able to sort them by restaurants so you know if you already took a picture of that item.

Find & share great dishes, not just restaurants.

Find whatever you're craving, see what's good at any restaurant and learn what foodspotters, friends and experts love wherever you go.